Each of the 32 colossal stones that form the Menga Dolmen megalithic monument in Antequera, is many times bigger than the largest megaliths at Stonehenge, according to an article in CNN. The largest single stone weighs around 150 metric tons, about the same as a blue whale and nearly five times heavier than the largest at Stonehenge.
CNN reports on the results of a decade-long research project, published in the Journal Science Advances, which attempts to answer this question of how these stones were moved and erected.
According to the research, the source of the stones was a quarry some 850 meters away, and at a higher elevation than the dolmen´s site. It would appear that the engineers built a trackway or road to move the stones down the gentle slope, by embedding closely spaced timber poles or planks into the ground, and dragging the stones with huge wooden sledges.
This, the research concluded, demonstrated the “creative genius” of neolithic society, at a time when agriculture was only recently adopted and tools were made largely of stone.
Read the full story here.
Picture above: Dolmen de Menga in Antequera by Olaf Tausch. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dolmen_de_Menga_07.jpg
